Dragon Ultimate (31 page)

"Heads says you go tell Cuzo." Relkin pulled out a coin, an imperial penny from the new mint in Dalhousie.

"Why do I always get tails?" Manuel groused.

"All right, you want heads?"

"Yes."

Relkin flipped the coin. It came up tails. With a sigh, Manuel got to his feet. "Why do I always lose with you?"

"I gave you the choice. You took heads. It came up tails."

"You blasphemer! Away with your Old Gods."

"Go tell Cuzo."

After Manuel slipped down the steps behind the rampart, Relkin gave quiet thanks to the Old Gods, in particular Old Caymo, who ruled the worlds of commerce and gambling.

A raised voice in the tower turned his head. The men in the tower were laughing over some sally or other. Their laughter carried out into the swamps, dark and quiet. The sea of reeds hardly stirred. The lone pines, standing tall, were stark against the grasses under the moon's amber light. Relkin turned back to contemplate the dark swamp.

Since he and Bazil had worked on seven different construction sites in the swamp, he had a good idea of the general geography of the battlefield. He understood that the army was in effect surrounded, but that if they had to they could smash through any force of Baguti that got in their way and retreat to the fort on the volcano five miles away. Still, it was unnerving to be cut off like this. The enemy on the riverfront greatly outnumbered them and possessed a great many trolls. They faced a hard, bitter-fought struggle before they could truly claim a victory. Tregor expected a long campaign, one reason he'd been so keen to fortify every possible defensive line and height in the area. They had to keep their own casualties very low, while exacting a heavy toll on the Padmasans.

Relkin was confident that it could be done. Legion troops were just that much superior to the imp-and-troll mixture that Padmasa relied on.

He put war out of his head for a moment and thought of Eilsa. Her face floated up in his memory while he prayed that she was well. Prayed that they would eventually be together again, wed and raising their family in the highlands of Kenor.

He'd barely finished his little prayer, this time to the Mother as he'd been taught at the dragonhouse, when there was a great flash of green light way out in the swamp, miles distant. The green fury blazed for ten seconds or more before it sank and then was gone. The thunder boomed over their heads for half a minute afterward.

Relkin was on his feet, his hand automatically reaching for an arrow as he took up the bow.

The camp had awoken. Cornets screamed. Men dressed quickly in the darkness, grabbed their weapons and helmets, and formed up behind the rampart. There were two companies of men and one dragon squadron, a fully sufficient force to hold such a well-built fortification.

Sharpshooters were up on the rampart aiming over the parapet, eyes sharp for the slightest movement. The catapults were loaded and wound up tight, their ropes twisted hard, ready to fire.

Captain Beeds made a hurried inspection, running up and down the rampart, with Sergeant Glep in tow. Beeds had seen action before, but like many men, he had a horror of sorcery, and the story of what had happened at Gideon's Landing had left him uneasy in his mind.

Dragon Leader Cuzo took up his station on the rampart set halfway down the line of dragons. Only five dragons could fight from the rampart at a time.

They waited for a short while, tense, expectant, ready for battle.

Then it began. First came a sudden shiver down their spines, like a draft of a sudden chill wind. Even the dragons, usually impervious to magical spume, noticed the effect. Though the reeds never moved, they all felt as if a cold wind blew over them.

"What is it?" snapped Beeds.

"I have no idea, sir," replied Sergeant Glep calmly. There were a few chuckles among those who were in earshot of this exchange. Glep was famously phlegmatic.

Still, everyone was thinking about what had happened to the Bea Third out at Gideon's Landing. That business began with the green light.

Now came occasional wisps of weird sound, haunting twisting keens and moans, always at the edge of the inaudible. And with them came little stings on the skin, as if there were a sudden cloud of biting midges. Men slapped at themselves, but the gnats were noncorporeal.

Then suddenly it ceased. Silence returned to the bogs and swamps.

"Well, that was a strange one," said Sergeant Glep, turning to go. "But it seem like it be over now." Glep didn't sound impressed.

"I see something," yelled a man on the nearer tower.

Everyone strained into the dark. The moon was still low on the horizon, and its light continued to be the color of old ivory. The scene remained fixed; no movements could be detected. The man in the tower was arguing furiously with the others up there. Yes, he had seen something. Yes, it wasn't moving now.

Again they stared at the swamp, but the scene seemed frozen in place. Not even the reeds were stirring. After a minute or so, Sergeant Glep gave up in loud disgust.

"I aim to get some sleep while I can." He clumped down the steps.

Others gave up as well and turned away.

"So that was it?" said the bowman Ortiz somewhat disappointed. "Just a big light and a lot of thunder?"

"So it seems."

"Ah, well." Ortiz put up his bow and placed the arrow back in the quiver.

With a huge gulping sound something surfaced in the nearby slough. Heavy sucking sounds followed, as if something enormous was being pulled from the mud. A shape began humping out of the ground and rearing up.

By then, even Sergeant Glep was on the rampart, staring out into the murk.

"What in all the names of hell?" said Captain Beeds.

A cylindrical mass, twenty feet high, perhaps eight feet wide, had risen out of the mud of the slough. As mud fell away the dark hide was revealed to be streaked with glowing green lines.

The top four feet of the barrel-shaped body was occupied with the roots of a dozen or more muscular tentacles that whipped around the top of the tube with a sinister energy.

"It moves!" cried someone in astonishment.

The huge bulk was sliding forward on a caterpillar-like body. As it came it made a strange, terrible noise, akin to singing, but in an eerie key that put their teeth on edge.

Behind the thing, way back in the swamp, lights began to appear. Men bearing torches were gathering farther out on the neck of dry land between the swamps. The Baguti were out there.

The thing came on, directly against the stockade. It was enormous, a hundred tons of flesh. As it drew closer the tentacles began to whip about excitedly. These tentacles were between fifteen and twenty feet in length, and tipped with pads covered in red suckers. The strange singing filled the air, cut by the sudden crack of the tentacles as they snapped like whips.

"Fire catapults!" came Beeds's order.

The catapults began to snap and whine in response and their big eight-foot spears were hurled into the body of the towering thing as it moved toward them.

The spears had little visible effect. The mountain of flesh came on. It looked up over the rampart, and the tentacles reached over and seized men and dragged them screaming from the wall, even still hewing at the tentacles with their swords, before they were lifted up and tossed into the gaping maw on the top of the central barrel. The mouth opened to reveal rows of peglike teeth.

The screaming men were dropped into this milling machine and quickly pulped and swallowed.

Arrows and spears stuck in the tough outer layer of the thing's hide, but didn't penetrate deeply enough to cause it any visible discomfort.

It brought its caterpillar body up to the wall and surged up to the nearest tower. Tentacles wrapped about the tower and the thing heaved and tore the entire top part of the tower free. Men dived from it as it disintegrated in the grip of the thing. Dragons hewed down with all their strength and drove their swords a foot or two deep into the creature, but not even this was enough to stop its advance. The Purple Green crashed into it and succeeded in getting its attention. Tentacles swung down and seized him. He roared and cut at them with his sword. The sword sank in but not all the way through, and the flesh rehealed the moment the sword was pulled back.

Bazil had fought against creatures with magical flesh before. "Have to cut all the way through," he grunted as he hewed into the breast with Ecator. Ecator went deep and momentarily the bright green lines on the monster's flank went dark. Then it screamed with astonishing violence and rammed the wall with its huge body. They all felt the shock. The rampart itself had moved. The parapet was shattered.

Bazil had a foot up on the thing's side, heaving Ecator free. The blade came out, aglow with its own angry energy. Globs of dark fluid flowed from the wound for a moment before it shut and healed itself.

The Purple Green was being tugged off the rampart by three massive tentacles wrapped around his huge form. The wild dragon was bellowing and struggling. A tentacle snatched at Cuzo and barely missed. The Dragon Leader pitched backwards off the rampart with a wail.

Like everyone else, Relkin searched for eyes on the thing, but could not find any. There were no obvious targets for his arrows, except, he noticed a pale patch underneath each tentacle where it joined onto the main trunk of the thing.

Like armpits, they might be weak points. He raised and fired, and saw his arrow jutting out of the paleness in the next moment.

The monster reacted with fury. The tentacle twitched and the pad coated with scarlet suckets slapped down where Relkin had been standing the moment before. Relkin had dodged aside, however. He crouched, aimed, and released, putting a second shaft next to the first.

The thing's terrible singing gave way to a dreadful shrieking, and tentacles tore wooden beams out of the gate supports. A tentacle slapped down again and Relkin dived for his life.

Its grip on the Purple Green loosened. He was tugged back to the rampart by Jumble and big old Chektor, the heavy veteran brasshide. Jumble was smacked backwards by a tentacle slap and the leatherback went down with a heavy thud. Other dragons charged forward for the place, and the rampart got crowded with wyvern bodies.

The tentacle snaked in to get at the Purple Green, and Haxarion and Alsebra hewed at it, then trapped it with their bodies and held it down.

More tentacles came for them. Part of the rampart was breaking up as the caterpillar body tore at it in its frenzy.

Vlok swung and brought down Katsbalger in a two-handed overhand that finally did the job and severed the tentacle held down by the two green dragons. Black fluids gushed briefly, but both the main body and the severed tentacle healed in an instant. Even separated from the body, the tentacle continued to live, wriggling like an enormous worm. It wrapped around Hexarion in a flash and began to choke the green dragon. Alsebra grabbed the tentacle and tried to pull it off, but could not. Hexarion fell over, still struggling with the thing, until Vlok got both hands on it and heaved it free and thew it over the parapet.

Bazil dodged a dragonsword on the backstroke and thrust home with Ecator, driving the elvish blade deep into the monstrous magical flesh. A second terrible cry erupted from the gnashing maw above their heads. The huge thing trembled while it pulled back, freeing itself from Ecator's deadly metal.

It hurled itself at Bazil, tentacles snapping. Arrows sank into the pale undersides of the tentacles as dragons threw themselves on the tentacles to hold them down. Others hewed into the tentacles with all their might, here and there succeeding in severing one.

Writhing tentacles then had to be peeled off the dragons and cut into chunks that were unable to move.

The monster screamed again and again, still tearing at the fortifications while Bazil stabbed home with Ecator, driving deep. Even now a man was dragged aloft, crying for his mother as he vanished into the gnashing maw.

But finally the tentacles moved more sluggishly. Dozens of arrows were jutting from the thing's armpits. Ecator had gone home again, too, sinking four feet into the bulk of the thing.

Dark body juices gushed down and soon the rampart was slippery. More and more arrows sprouted from it until it was encrusted in them and its tentacles had slowed significantly. In some cases they were barely moving. More were hewn off. The Purple Green was driving his sword into the barrel of the monster with greater success. Ecator's deep thrusts had weakened it in some way.

Its wails grew continuous and its movements weakened further.

Several dragons worked together to carve a huge chunk from the front of the beast. The Purple Green cut off the last moving tentacle, then the main body fell across the rampart. They lined up to hew it in half and then to cut the thing to small pieces. Black fluid and evil-smelling gas bubbled from the dying flesh.

The torches of the Baguti remained where they'd first appeared. The monster was supposed to break the wall. It had failed. They were not interested in throwing themselves against a wall, even a battered one, that was still held by dragons.

On the rampart, the Legionaries gave up a great cheer while the cornets shrieked exultant. Dragons roared and slapped their shields.

Meanwhile an anxious Captain Beeds took stock of the casualties. Forty men were either in the thing's belly or incapacitated with broken limbs. The east-side tower above the gate was gone, and the wall alongside was badly damaged where the beast had torn down the palisade. The massive dirt rampart itself with its huge bulk had been gouged and cracked. But the gate was still strong and so was the west side of the fortification.

The Purple Green had pockmarks all over his body from the scarlet suckers, and most of the other dragons had a few of these. The young witch named Tessi came to look. Relkin thought she looked no older than Lagdalen had the first day he'd met her years before. Tessi kept her pale hair tied back, and she wore a perpetual frown on her serious little face. Manuel welcomed her warmly enough, though, and she burned herbs and prayed beside the Purple Green and then the other dragons with wounds from the monster's suckers. Finally she smeared unguent on their wounds after they had been treated with Old Sugustus by the dragonboys.